James W. Blake
| James W. Blake | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 23, 1862 New York City, New York, United States |
| Died | May 24, 1935 New York City, New York, United States |
| Genres | Popular music |
| Occupation(s) | lyricist |
| Years active | c. 1885–1935 |
James W. Blake (23 September 1862 – 24 May 1935) was a lyricist who is most famous for the words to the 1894 song, The Sidewalks of New York.
Blake was one of seven children of Michael and Elizabeth Blake, immigrants from County Westmeath, Ireland. He and his siblings were all born in Manhattan, in their family home at 312 East 18th Street, just off Second Avenue. James Blake went to P.S. 40 in Manhattan, worked as a stock boy and office boy in various drapers' shops, then went to evening school and became a real estate agent. His oldest brother, Michael F. Blake, a classmate of Charles F. Murphy and James A. Foley, was first a news reporter, then went to law school, joined his former classmates and Tammany Hall, and became a City Court judge for 20 years.
Blake became a hat salesman, and songwriting was only a hobby, which he turned to when sales were slow. One day in 1894, Charles Lawlor, a friend who was also a well-known vaudeveillian and singer, walked into John Golden's hat store on Third Avenue between East 13th and East 14th Streets to visit Blake, humming the melody that became The Sidewalks of New York. Blake took a liking to the 3/4 tune, and had him repeat it several times. "You get the music on paper," he told Lawlor, "and I'll write the words for it." Lawlor returned to the store in about twenty minutes with the musical notes on paper, and Blake was halfway through the lyrics, having been interrupted by a customer. He finished the words in another half-hour. The tune and words became extremely familiar and well-known throughout New York City. It was first made famous by Lottie Gilson, and it had staying power because the melody was catchy and easy to sing.
The words were a shared vision of Lawlor and Blake, and recall their childhood neighborhoods and those who grew up with them. It was a universal longing for youth, yesteryear, and place, although it was also idealized because both Lawlor and Blake had grown up quite poor. Lawlor said that he envisioned a "big husky policeman leaning against a lamppost and twirling his club, an organ grinder playing nearby, and the east side kids with dirty faces, shoes unlaced, stockings down, torn clothes, dancing to the music, while from a tenement window an old Irish woman with a checkered cap and one of those old time checkered shawls around her shoulders, looking down and smiling at the children." The children's names in the lyrics were those of Blake's childhood friends. The song became popular right after it was published, and decades later had a huge renaissance when Al Smith used it as his theme during his three failed presidential campaigns in 1920, 1924, and 1928.
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